


Of Hands We Hold

by Innocentfighter



Series: Rebirth Remix [1]
Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, Justice League of America (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Background Relationships, Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, M/M, Parallax - Freeform, Tags to be added, Temporary Character Death, not a complete list of tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 17:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11582499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innocentfighter/pseuds/Innocentfighter
Summary: Hal had tried to reach out for help. He went to three people, and all three people had refused to help him. After he fell, they wondered.





	1. Bruce Wayne

**Author's Note:**

> Hmm, angst. Such a fun thing to write. As per usual, my disclaimer is that I am not well versed in DC comics as a whole, but I do know Hal Jordan pretty well. If I mischaracterize I apologize, but also sometimes my characterizations can be colored by my personal feelings on a character and how I interpret them but feel free to tell me what I've done wrong! So this is technically the first part of the series chronologically, and you don't have to read them in order, but I do recommend reading them at some point because I might allude to things I've stated in previous stories.  
> Regardless, please enjoy!

_Hal Jordan_ asked him for help.

Bruce Wayne hadn’t laughed at him but instead turned him away citing that he needed to be more responsible in handling his double life. Once he rejected the request Hal had squared his shoulders, looked angry but hadn’t lashed out. He had only turned and left, Alfred showing him the door.

Only months later would Bruce think back to that day and wonder if he should’ve been so fast to dismiss the request. Part of him had gotten something out of seeing Hal down on his luck and desperate because Hal Jordan was the most egotistical, impulsive, reckless, arrogant, stupidly fearless, showboating man that Bruce had the displeasure to know.

He pulled the cowl off. He wasn’t being entirely fair to Hal. While he was all of that, the man had been suffering. If it’s one thing that Bruce Wayne knew, it was that feeling. Flash had only been gone a couple of months at that point and Hal had been a ghost.

The League pretended they didn’t know what was going on between the two heroes. Maybe the other founders didn’t know, but Batman had seen the looks that the two shared. Barry Allen looked at Hal Jordan like he was the most important thing in the whole world. Hal Jordan looked at Barry Allen like he was the whole world. Every time the speedster came back into view Hal would turn to acknowledge his presence in some way, he was always aware of Flash. As a moon was caught in a planet's orbit he could not break away.

Hal Jordan might’ve been childish and irresponsible, but he had been a good man. Green Lantern had been one of the best. In combat, he would hover above the fight, much like Superman or Wonder Woman would when they took a brief breather, but Lantern was watching out for his teammates catching them in constructs and saving them from injury. No one did that for him.

Bruce frowned before settling at the console. He had Jordan pegged from the moment he researched him. He wasn’t an enigma. All he had ever been was a flyboy, a good one but there was nothing beyond that. He had a string of relationships but he mostly was with Carol Ferris. After he got the ring he started staying only with Carol and when that ended, he moved onto Barry and the rest was history. The long lasting relationships had been outside of the patterns, but Bruce made them fit into the box he made for Hal.

The ironic part was the ring that let him soar actually grounded him in a way that just being a pilot hadn’t.

Hal Jordan may have had some undesirable traits, but deep down he was a good man. Honest, trustworthy, determined, willful, creative, and brave (though that occasionally clashed with stupidly fearless), all traits that Bruce found noteworthy.

The ring had chosen Hal Jordan, and that had to stand for something. It meant that he shouldn’t be banging on the door of his friends to help him with things that he should be able to handle.

Hal Jordan asked _him_ for help.

The computer was bringing up social media feeds and surveillance from all around Gotham. It was the only light in the dark cave. For several minutes he wouldn’t be able to do anything while the computer continued to pull up the information.

That was another thing that bothered him about that afternoon. Batman and Green Lantern had several trending videos from their public arguments and still carried wounds from their private arguments.

From day one they had never gotten along beyond civil courtesy. Their ideals differed too greatly. Batman lived his life in the dark, draping himself in it. Green Lantern was a beacon of light, cloaking himself in that. Where Batman thrived causing fear and using it to his advantage, Green Lantern hated the emotion. They were each other’s opposite and rarely could they work as a pair.

Even though they both had been forged by fire by their parents’ deaths they couldn’t find that common ground. Bruce had become Batman because he was afraid of something happening like that to him again or anyone else. Hal Jordan had become a pilot and dared the universe to do the same thing that it had done to his dad.

Regardless of their past, Hal still had shown up on his doorstep asking for aid. Bruce had assumed back then it was because he had the money to spare, but that had never sat right with him. Oliver also had the money but Hal hadn’t gone to him. Not right away. It should’ve tipped him off back then that the other reason was that Bruce was the least likely (next to Barry) to hold it over his head.

Bruce paused, he realized that Hal’s financial problems hadn’t been a recent development, but he had always had Barry to help him. Even before they were together, Barry had always given him a couch or food or a shoulder to cry on. Hal hadn’t been asking for that. Just a request, and a reasonable one at that.

Rejecting Hal because he had come to him, had still felt fine. They never saw eye to eye and Hal shouldn’t have expected anything from him. Barely cordial allies didn’t have to help with every little thing.

Hal Jordan _asked_ him _for help._

The computer chirped, but Bruce’s hands had gone limp. Help. He knew the situation had felt wrong because prideful, arrogant Hal Jordan did not ask for help. When it was offered he turned away from it, and when he needed it he would never ask.

Fights in which he needed to battle back reinforcements and his ring couldn’t handle it, there had never been a peep until someone else called out that Green Lantern was being overrun. When he was injured and could barely stand, he hobbled his own way into the infirmary or waited until he was found in the rubble after someone noticed (usually Flash who would then go panicky) that he was gone.

Bruce had always thought that it was a pride thing, he was too good to need help. Now he wondered about that.

There was a time when Ms. Ferris had called Bruce yelling her head off and seething. The initial minutes of the conversation were lost on him in the screeching sound coming from the CEO. Only after the initial tirade did Bruce get a complete explanation.

“You said you checked that plane for errors! I nearly lost my best pilot because of internal fuel leakage, from the tank you supplied!”

“It must’ve been a faulty part, all of our calculations determined that the tank would be able to maintain the heat, we are sorry about any-” He tried to reply calmly.

Ms. Ferris had cut him off cleaner than any blade could, “I don’t care about your excuses Mr. Wayne. I care that I nearly had a repeat of history.”

Bruce frowned. He only agreed to give testing rights to Ferris because Hal Jordan would be flying those planes, it was the best outcome for both of the companies. Hal always made everything look good to buyers. So it reasons to stand that the pilot had been Hal Jordan.

_Oh._ He remembered thinking.

“Oh, is right Mr. Wayne. I’ll call you back once we’ve identified the problem and fixed it.”

The line went dead but Bruce could only continue to hold the phone in his hand. He wondered if that had been enough to scare Hal, and so in curiosity that night he hacked Ferris Air to hear the recording of the flight.

It had gone smoothly until Hal’s voice changed from one of excitement to deadly calm. Bruce knew it was the same that thing that happened when he went from Hal to Green Lantern.

“My fuel gauge is dropping rapidly, but I see no external leakage.”

“Highball ground the bird,” Ms. Ferris’ voice ordered.

“No, investors are watching, right? I only have two more minutes of airtime. It’ll be fine.”

“It will be worse if you blow up!” Ms. Ferris snapped.

Hal finished the flight and landed it on the furthest runway, he had only barely escaped the explosion. Bruce had seen that on the video footage. His stomach dropped, he couldn’t imagine living the exact way his father had died.

However, Green Lantern had seemed fine, until in a personal conference he asked for full night shifts for the week. Which Batman granted because that made things easier if there was a volunteer.

He had never realized how badly that flight had affected him. Thinking back, Bruce could recall the dark bruises under his eyes during the conversation and the sag to his shoulders. Hal had been wrung dry.

So Hal asking for any help must’ve put him on the edge of desperate. Bruce wondered if that had been a long time coming and if there was anyone else that he asked before vanishing into the depths of his madness. 

**Hal Jordan asked him for help.**

And for some unimportant undefined reason, Bruce turned him away. There were three signs that he should’ve grabbed the hand that was barely above the surface of the water. He let the man drown. It wasn’t entirely his fault, but he had been passive. As he had been when his parents were shot.

The man had lost his city, lost his world and while he knew what that felt like, he chalked the request up to it being Hal’s irresponsibility. He had lost his objectivity that he prided himself on as the World’s Greatest Detective, and missed one of the most important things of a man’s life.

Bruce shook his head, or the descent could’ve been a long time coming. Hal’s negative traits always showed more obviously than his good ones, as a shield or personality, he didn’t know. The Fall could happen to anyone, and perhaps they shouldn’t have trusted Hal in the first place if he was so unwilling to trust them and go for help. If he was going to make a request for help so easy to deny.

It wasn’t fair to Hal. No one ever was. Bruce knew that he would be going to bed with the same words ringing in his head.

_ Hal Jordan asked him for help. _

And he had done nothing. 


	2. Clark Kent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had all of these pre-written. I'm just editing them.

Clark always wondered what it was about the nearness of death that always made one’s mind clear. Parallax had him pinned by just placing a foot on his chest. He couldn’t move and his mind was going a hundred miles an hour trying to think of a way to get out of this.

That's when the startling clarity kicked in. Hal had come to him for help, but he hadn’t given it. It was weird because he would’ve offered it to anyone else. Maybe it was some misguided attempt at teaching Hal responsibility. Though he knew the circumstances that Hal was dealing with. Off-world eight months of the year and then he had lost what was likely the most important person in his life.

Hal was grieving and needed somebody. Superman, who had been that somebody for complete strangers standing on the ledges of buildings, had denied it to one of his closest friends.

The foot pressed harder down on his chest. Not enough force to break anything, but enough to keep him pinned. Superman had no choice but to look up at the face of the person currently aiming to kill him. 

He could see Hal in Parallax like someone had colored him but then changed it so that it was barely recognizable. It was the same brown hair and brown eyes with sun-kissed freckles faint across his nose that he had known for years, but the eyes weren’t filled with warm and mirth and the usually cocky smirk was twisted into a cruel smirk and the brown hair was graying at the temples.

Everything was there. Just shifted. Hal, who had been the first with a joke and to risk his life had become a monster. Clark wondered if anyone had seen this coming. He hadn’t been around after Barry’s death and by the time he came back it was too late to stop Coast City from being destroyed. There was no telling what Hal had suffered in that time, what one thing it was that had finally broken that indomitable will.

Each and every time he had gone to the edge and stared at the precipice someone had put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back. Hal had been tipping and reached out a hand. Clark had thought that the scare of the fall would make him want to fly again.

That’s what Hal Jordan did best, he took the space given to him and soared. Even planes were faulty sometimes, Clark supposed that Hal knew that better than anyone else.

Superman was meant to be a hero. Never make the wrong choice, always be north in the moral compass so that people will follow his lead. Then he had died, and the compass stopped working for one of his friends.

The blame couldn’t entirely be his. There was too much time that he couldn’t help had he even wanted to. Going back he would’ve told Lois that he would get it done and gone with Hal and done what he needed to do. Eventually, he did help out again, but his part in it had been minor and they hadn’t even spoken afterward other than brief thanks.

It should’ve been a warning that Hal was so surprised he showed up to help.

Parallax pressed harder and air left his lungs. He was monologuing now. Underneath the inhuman growl, Hal’s soft California accent could be heard, the one that Barry teased was “valley girl.” It was the first true part of Hal that he had seen. He wasn’t completely gone. This could be some form of mind control!

If Parallax had wanted him dead, Superman knew that he would’ve been killed. Hal was in there and fighting for some kind of control. It gave him the strength to push the foot from his chest and rise back up. The other’s looked relieved that he had found his ground again.

He’d save Hal from whatever was controlling him, and it would make up for not helping him originally because now he was helping Hal from an even greater threat. When they were done here, he would still be able to call himself a hero. The guilt that he felt after he talked someone down from a ledge and was reminded he hadn’t done the same for Hal would diminish.

When Hal was back Clark promised that he would help him heal and mourn Barry and his city properly. Even give him a couch to crash on. However, as anyone knew, there were priorities. Saving the universe came before saving Hal. Once the Universe didn’t end they’d have all the time in the world. He couldn't save everyone, but he could try.

It was nothing less than what he would do for anyone else. Clark nodded to himself throwing a right hook that caught Parallax in the jaw. That’s when he saw Oliver, stunned with his bow half knocked, a serrated arrow. There would need to be a quick debrief to tell him that they would be able to save Hal.

Clark frowned, why hadn’t Oliver helped Hal? They were best friends, and surely he had to notice that something was amiss with the Green Lantern. Oh well, there would be time for apologies and regret later.

The thought hit him again. He would’ve dropped everything to help his friends, so why hadn’t he helped Hal?

_ Why hadn’t he?  _

If he had, would Hal still be come Parallax? Would he still have to frantically find a way to tear the two apart? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always leave your thoughts and comments below.


	3. Oliver Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again I had all of these pre-written and I'm just editing them at the moment. As always point out any flaws.

Oliver knew that he said things before he thought them all of the way through. It was a problem that he had throughout his life. Usually, when he said something stupid the press would call him out for weeks or someone close to him would usually punch him and ask him what the hell he was thinking.

Usually that someone close to him was Hal Jordan, his best friend.

After Barry died, Hal had become a specter of himself. Hiding out, and Oliver expected it. Those two had been each other’s tethers for so long that either of them living without each other for a long time was a longshot. Regardless, he had given Hal the space that he needed and he had gotten closer to his Pretty Bird.

Things were good for a time. Then Hal cornered him on patrol. Asking for a place to crash for the night. Really, he hadn’t been asking for much and there were plenty of spare bedrooms. Though there was just something that made Oliver reject the request and feel good about it. Maybe it was because Hal had been MIA for months and suddenly shows up asking for a place to crash on that had rubbed him wrong. Whatever the reason, turning Hal away had seemed like a good plan at the time+. Besides, Dinah wanted him to be more responsible and Hal was like the antitheses of responsibility.

Without a fight, not even a quip. Hal let him stick his foot in his mouth. Oliver watched the green light fade from view and turned to finish out his patrol.

He got home and dropped his quiver when he realized he had turned Hal away, his best friend who had never not been there for him and who had his world crumble down around him. He turned him away because he thought he was irresponsible and forgot that Hal had nothing, not because he wasn’t trying, but because he had a higher calling that kept him away from society’s expectation of normal. Turning him away had been the irresponsible part.

Calling him had been his first choice, but the phone cut to an automated message saying service had cut. He called the league to see if they had any eyes on Hal, but Batman had given him a negative. For some reason, the fracture that had been growing in their relationship cracked and it became a crevice.

Oliver curled up on the couch and tried to not feel like his heart was ripping in two. Hal was the closest thing that he had to a brother. He couldn’t lose that. 

Naturally, it was that position that Dinah found him in when she came in from her own patrol.

“Ollie?” She asked softly.

“I fucked up,” he whispered.

“What happened?”

He closed his eyes, all he could see was the last bit of light flicker out of Hal’s eyes before he took off into the sky. His green had been dimmer. Hal had lost his  _ will,  _ what made him a Green Lantern. His actual reason for living and Oliver had taken that away from him. Like an asshole.

Apparently, he had said that all out loud because his Pretty Bird was looking very close to violence.

“You did what?” She yelled, “Oliver! He is your closest friend!”

“I know. I just never thought about him being homeless. He always had Barry,” he hoped he didn’t sound as bitter as he felt when he said that name.

“Barry is dead, stop trying to compete with him for Hal’s affection,” Dinah growled. “You knew all of that, but why didn’t you think about that?”

“I don’t know. It’s- Hal has never had consequences. Barry was always there to defend him, and I was there to enable him. There was no safety net for when everything would catch up with him. You wanted me to be more responsible, so that’s what I did,” it was his most strung together thought for the night.

Dinah didn’t seem that impressed by it, “stay on the couch. Then we’re going to find Hal tomorrow and you're going to apologize and then we’re dragging him back here and he’s staying until he wants to leave.”

Oliver nodded along mutely, then he whispered, “I fucked up so bad. The only way I could’ve made it worse if I told him to run back to Barry. What if we can’t fix it?”

“Then you deal with the consequences, learn them like you were so nobly trying to teach Hal.”

She stood up and turned to go up to their room, “Ollie, don’t lose touch with your friends just because you don’t think I approve. I’m friends with most of them too, and the others are heroes and you can’t get a much better person than that sometimes.”

He nodded his head weakly. Truthfully he was still trying to find the ground. He’d been with Dinah for years, and just because it was just now starting to seem like the long haul shouldn’t make him push Hal away. The Lantern hadn’t done that to him after he and Barry got serious.

The thought of the speedster darkened his mood even more. They had never gotten along, probably never would have except for Hal. It’d been a silent promise when he heard what happened, but a promise nonetheless to look over Hal. If Barry was alive, there was no doubt that they’d been in a full blown fist fight. Gentle, kind Barry who had the longest fused temper of the league would have no qualms about beating up anyone that hurt a person he cared about.

Oliver ignored the tears that ran down his face and in the morning he played them off as allergies.

* * *

The next time he saw Hal, it wasn’t Hal. Physically it might’ve been him but Oliver knew that this wasn’t the same man that he’d gotten drunk with and cried about his Pretty Bird rejecting him. This wasn’t the Hal that came to his place in the middle of the night in a near panic about how scared he was to lose what he had going with Barry.

It certainly wasn’t the same man that Oliver had refused to help. That Hal had been a step away from the original, but still twenty steps away from this monster. Because in any universe Oliver doubted Hal could even make that trek, he refused to even kill spiders.

_ “They’re smaller than us. Why do we have to kill them when we can just move them?” _

Oliver realized how absurd it was that he was remembering that conversations out of all of them. He had deluded himself into thinking that when someone falls this far you think of all of the important things that you’ve ever talked about. The trials and tribulations that made them the paragon that they were. Not some obscure quirk.

Unsurprisingly he hadn’t been much help in the fight. There was only so much that he could do with a bow and arrow. He was holding one of his serrated arrows, and if this monster had been Hal then one straight to the heart would do him in. Oliver was still holding out that Hal would get himself back together and fight Parallax.

This would be easier if they knew for a fact that Hal had been possessed and this just wasn’t the result of madness. From losing everything and being abandoned by his friends. Batman seemed to think that this was a long time coming and Superman always waited until the last minute to pass judgment. Which could cost them the universe.

When Parallax killed the Batgirl from the other universe Oliver made his call. The new Lantern held Parallax still, long enough that he could aim his arrow, he hesitated because the yellow-fleck eyes (that he knew weren’t Hal’s, his had always been a mix of browns that shone like amber in the morning sun with occasional flecks of green) had vanished and he was seeing those familiar browns. They were steady but pleading.

“Ollie,” he rasped out. His lips moved like there was something more he wanted to say.

“Hal,” he breathed back because this was Hal and this was all the proof he needed that this  _ wasn’t  _ Hal calling himself Parallax but some other influence at work. The yellow was coming back, and Oliver knew then.

Hal wanted to die on his own terms. Once more Oliver shot an arrow through his heart, though this one was more literal than turning him away had been. He could picture what the arrow was doing on its flight to his heart. It would shatter the center plate on the armor and break through the sternum and cleanly sever the aorta.

Parallax fell the ground grasping at the arrow, Oliver watched him before turning his back to help and fix the universe that was slowly destroying itself. When he turned back so that they could detain Parallax all that remained of his presence was a broken shaft.

Oliver picked it up, there was a trace of blood where it had been partially embedded in its target. He stuck it back in his quiver for later speculation.

Instead of giving it over to the league and seeing if whatever cause Hal to go crazy was some alien bloodborne pathogen he set it on the desk next to the extra ring that he was keeping. Not that it did Hal any good, would do him any good again.

Because Oliver had killed him. Killed his best friend to save the universe. It was a fair trade, the heroes would be hailed as the victors once more, but they would only know that Green Lantern had fallen, not that he was fighting for every inch of control he managed to wrest from Parallax.

No one would believe him if he said that. They would call him delusional and say that he was in denial. It didn’t matter to him, but he’d rather not earn the doubt of the league. He didn’t need them to know what he knew.

That he had killed his best friend, because in those few seconds that was all Hal, begging him to kill him. For the last time he had enabled Hal to get his way, but for the first time, he felt awful for allowing it.

He put an arrow in the heart of one of the best men that he knew, and he was the one that felt like he died.

The victory party had been empty for him, and Oliver left early. Screamed in the empty hall, which ironically was the Hall of the Fallen. The Flash’s statue was the biggest one, taking up the spot reserved for the the Founders. Oliver knew that Hal wouldn’t get that spot, and the seventh one meant for Green Lantern would never be filled.

Because Hal hadn’t died a hero, it meant his life as a hero didn’t mean anything. It was the black and white thinking of League leadership. He hated it, but he hated being here more, after all, he wasn’t feeling very heroic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as we reach the end of this story I've always wondered why they didn't help Hal, and why he always seemed to get the short stick. Well, regardless. As always leave your comments below as well as your thoughts! I always thought that in some ways heroes were black and white minded, at least in their early days. Also during the times that these comic books were written. I hope I did these guys justice! Please let me know!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for sticking with me until the end of this chapter, I know I'm being a tiny bit unfair to Bruce but I always thought that he was unfair to Hal, so you know it balances out. There are two more people to explore after that! As usual, leave your comments and thoughts below! See you next time!


End file.
